As known, a method for serial personalization is executed to store data in smart cards, and, more particularly, to store a unique serial number for identifying those smart cards.
According to a known method for serial personalization a plurality of smart cards are loaded on a conveyor belt whereon one or more programming heads are operative to electrically contact the smart cards and store the logical serial numbers. Such methods also execute a physical check of the programmed smart cards, verifying the shape of the cards and their compliance with predetermined form factors, but also their graphical layout, discarding the smart cards which are physically defective, i.e. the smart cards which are electrically working, but which cannot be delivered to the consumer due to their defective layout or other physical defects.
The phase of checking is executed after storing the serial number in the smart card, since the graphical layout or form factor might also be damaged for a wrong contact with the programming head which stores the serial number and potentially due to any operation preceding the delivery of the smart cards. A physically defective smart card is discarded and its serial number is recovered and assigned to another smart card to be personalized.
The method above described suffers from some problems. First of all, the smart card whose serial number is assigned to another smart card might be reused, whether it is not physically or electrically rendered unusable. In this respect, the known method delivers the physically defective smart card to a separate output collector with respect to the other smart cards, and a human operator might pick up the physically defective smart card from the separate output collector, before it is render unusable. In this case, two smart cards with a same logical serial number may exist.
On the other hand, it is not typically permitted to render unusable a physically defective smart card without assigning its number to another smart card. This is so since a customer, who requires serial personalization, expects that a supplier who is responsible of such serial personalization, delivers all the smart cards with the serial numbers that the customer provided before production.
The problem is how to avoid a duplication of smart cards with same serial numbers in a method and system for serial personalization, thus improving the security and at the same time the performance of such a method and system, and overcoming the limits that currently affect the prior art method and system.